MPs don’t hurry with humanization of legal norms concerning prisoners
Member
of the Baranavichy city branch of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Anzhalika
Kambalava received an answer from the member of the lower chamber of the
Parliament, Sviatlana Pishch.
The MP expressed a formal gratitude to the activist for her active civil
position and initiative (Anzhalika had addressed MPs with the request to
humanize the Criminal-Executive legislation regulating the treatment of
prisoners).
Sviatlana Pishch writes that she is against a rapid amendment of the
Criminal-Executive legislation and thinks it is a long and continuous process.
She states that the aims of penalty cannot be achieved by soft measures – it can
be done only in the conditions of strict isolation and special regime.
The civil activist agrees with the MP that personal restraint, forced labor and
special regime are penalties. However, Alena Kambalava is of the opinion that
humiliation of human dignity of prisoners, their keeping in the cells where
sanitary and hygienic norms aren’t observed, limitation of sleep, nutrition and
other human needs cannot be considered as a legal means of influence on a
convicted person.
“Of course, it is hard to incline MPs to start work for the humanization of the
Criminal-Executive legislation by one letter or collecting several signatures,
but it is necessary to start such actions in our conditions,” says Anzhalika
Kambalava.
